


Love Collection

by Shamen610



Category: Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Fic Gift, Fluff, M/M, Steve is there to reassure him, Stony Loves Steve 2018, slight angst, tony doubts himself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-11
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2019-06-01 15:26:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15146096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shamen610/pseuds/Shamen610
Summary: It was only when Steve had walked towards the room and started opening the door that Tony had realized.“Steve, wait! Don’t go—” But by then it was too late, and Steve had already opened the door. “...there.”Steve just stood there in front of the room, completely at a loss.“Okay, wait. I can explain!” Tony started to clamour out. “There is totally a justifiable reason why I have a room filled with your things... I just need to find it.”





	Love Collection

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ashes0909](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashes0909/gifts).



> This is a fic gift for ashes0909 for the Stony Loves Steve 2018. It is based on the prompt: Shortly after Steve joins the 21st Century he finds Tony’s Captain America memorabilia collection. Tony’s mortified and Steve is impressed, but mostly he’s just happy to find items he’s familiar with. [MCU based AU]
> 
> I hope I did it justice!!! I am so very new to this so I really hope you like it!
> 
> I would also like to mention a HUGE thanks to FestiveFerret for being my Beta! Thank you so much for helping me so quickly! You are a life saver and extremely kind!!!

The collection had actually been started by Howard. After his death, there had been two major things that Howard had passed on to Tony. The first being his favour for the bottle, and the second his dedication to Captain America. 

For as long as he could remember, Tony’s life had always involved Captain America, small in some ways and big in others. As a child, it was easy to latch on to the Captain. He was a popular hero, and all the children had been in awe of him. 

Tony remembered watching TV and seeing his hero destroy Nazis and save the day. His father would sometimes see these occasions and briefly stop and stare at the screen, probably reminiscing about when they had worked together in the glory days. Tony wasn’t all too sure what he thought, but he always remembered the attention the Captain got from his father.

Howard had brought Tony a lot of Captain America merchandise too. From action figures to themed bedspreads, he made sure Tony had it all. Perhaps, in his own way, he was trying to connect his past with his future, or maybe he was trying to make sure the memory of his dear friend would live on with his family. Either way, there was no chance for Tony to grow up without becoming the biggest Cap fanboy ever. 

This was further cemented the day Howard brought Tony to an auction. The proceeds were to go to charity, and Howard had spent a good portion of the time trying to impart to Tony that as an influential person of wealth, it was necessary to go to events like these in order to earn the goodwill of the general public. It was also supposedly a great way to network and build relationships too. Never say Howard didn’t know how to work the business game. Tony figured that his own love and interest for charity work came more from his mother than his father. It was also one of the reasons why he seldom went to these charity functions, preferring instead to donate the money or send a representative—anything to separate himself from his father. 

It was at this particular charity function that Howard (and then later on Tony) developed a real interest in the collection. 

The event had started out as they all normally did. There was expensive jewelry that once belonged to a queen, a gold record signed and dated by a famous blues singer, and various other belongings of famous and important people. It wasn’t until the end when they released their biggest item of the day, that things got really interesting. 

By this point Tony had completely zoned out. He had perfected the look of appearing interested while actually running calculations or developing designs in his head. 

There were sudden collective gasps and a few people getting up from their chairs in excitement and then quickly sitting themselves down—as if remembering to maintain some semblance of their esteemed reputations. His father himself was one of these people, and that was what brought Tony’s attention back to the front.

Howard wasn’t one to get excited easily, so whatever had caught his attention was going to be something to take note of. 

Looking up, Tony saw that the item was definitely something to behold. 

Up front was the uniform that Captain America wore when he went on his first ever heroic mission to rescue Sergeant James Barnes. At least, that’s what the auctioneer told the crowd.

That had been an important moment in Tony’s life; after obtaining this particular item at the auction, Howard had begun to search for any item pertaining to Captain America. Tony hadn’t understood why at first, but he was always eager to see what particular item Howard had brought home that day. It wasn’t until later that Tony found out Howard had collected those items in the hopes of keeping the memory of Steve Rogers alive and provide motivation to find him. 

Despite all his faults, his father was a smart man and he had good intuition; he must have always known that there was a chance that the serum would have allowed for Steve to survive the ice.

But as with all things that Howard possessed, he eventually abandoned both his search for Steve Rogers and the collection. And as with all things that Howard abandoned, Tony was quick on the uptake.

After the collection was in his possession, Tony made sure to curate it with as much care and dedication as Pepper did with the art pieces he “owned”.

Within the year, Tony had pretty much everything he could find that once belonged to Steven Grant Rogers. It wasn’t too hard: Steve didn’t actually posses much to begin with. Since Steve didn’t have a next of kin, all of his belongings had been seized by the government. They didn’t much care for the more personal belongings of Steve, so most of it had been sold off. Tony had managed to track down most of it by going through their records of sales. Anything associated with the Captain himself was easily found through auctions or by the people themselves boasting about them. 

After that, Tony had eased up on actively searching and instead had a system in place to notify him if anyone was selling anything related to Captain America. Money was all he needed when all you had to do was be the highest bidder, but it was another story when the people wanted to keep what they had no matter the price. There were quite a few people that Tony had come across who had preferred to keep their items as memorabilia. Tony himself could understand the sort of sentiment, so he had to concede that he wouldn’t be able to get everything.

Once he was satisfied with his collection and done what he could, Tony had a whole room to house it. He still had J.A.R.V.I.S. notify him if anything new popped up, but for the most part he was pretty content with everything he had obtained. 

He hadn’t told anybody about his secret collection; it was embarrassing enough to him how far he took his admiration, he didn’t need others knowing about it too. Especially not after all the times he made fun of Rhodey for his Captain America fanboy tendencies—he’d never live it down if Rhodey found out just how bad Tony himself had it for the Star Spangled Man. 

However, Rhodey finding out wasn’t nearly as bad as the moment when Steve himself walked into the room Tony had dedicated to him. 

It was his fault really, Tony hadn’t been to the room in a long while—what was the point when you had the real thing right in front of you? So, when Tony had brought Steve over to the mansion with the intention of showing him around, the collection had completely slipped his mind. 

It was only when Steve had walked towards the room and started opening the door that Tony had realized. 

“Steve, wait! Don’t go—” But by then it was too late, and Steve had already opened the door. “...there.”

Steve just stood there in front of the room, completely at a loss.

“Okay, wait. I can explain!” Tony started to clamour out. “There is totally a justifiable reason why I have a room filled with your things... I just need to find it.”

“Tony,” Steve breathed out. “What is all this?” With those words, he ventured into the room. He seemed to be mentally taking down a list of all the items in the room as he came across them.

“I—I... It’s just... things... my father... collected...” Tony stammered out. 

“Howard collected all this?” Steve asked while he raised an eyebrow to Tony.

“Er, well... no. I mean he did start it—it was only a couple items at first, but then he stopped and I was, well, pretty fascinated by you when I was younger, so I just kinda, took over?” He gave Steve the short version, and Steve seemed to realize it too.

“You took over,” Steve repeated, giving Tony a deadpan look. 

“Ah, yeah.”

“How did you even get all this…?” Steve trailed off, he let Tony’s previous answer slide and resumed perusing the items throughout the room. 

The room itself was pretty grand. It had two large grid windows on either side of the room with heavy ornate burgundy curtains alongside them. The floors were of hardwood with rich oak colours to give the room an elegant feel. The items themselves were placed in such a way that contrasted with the elegant architecture.

“Just, you know...” Tony shrugged, not really giving an answer. Steve let it go for now, instead he seemed to bring his attention back to the things in the room. 

He ran his hand over one of the tables in the room—a wooden one, that had a rickety leg--he said he remembered it from way back when he and Buck used to eat on it in their younger days. Apparently Bucky had always complained about it and said that they should fix it, but they never quite got around to it. 

Something white then caught the corner of his eye, as it rolled off the table. Tony tried to reach for it but Steve’s quick reflexes allowed him to catch the ball just before it hit the floor. 

Steve opened his hand to reveal an old baseball, and Tony saw Steve take a sharp intake of breath at the site of it. 

“This is...I can’t believe it!” 

“What? What is it!?” Tony eagerly said as he peered over his shoulder. “Oh, it’s your baseball. I used to play with it all the time in this room.”

Steve looked at him completely scandalized. “Tony, this isn’t just any baseball, this is the baseball the Dodgers used when they scored their home run hit back in '41!”

“Oh, oops. I just thought it was a regular baseball.”

“I can’t believe...I just—I thought I’d never see it again. I thought I’d never see any of these things again,” Steve said, in supposed awe of the many things dispersed in the room. 

“Oh, well, you can have it all back if you’d like. It’s all your stuff to begin with,” Tony told Steve. He was still a bit mortified at being caught having a room filled with all of Steve’s things, but the man just seemed to be happy to see something familiar for once. Emboldened by the thought, Tony took a step further and added, “Besides, if you move in like I offered, you won’t even have to go through all the hassle of moving everything!”

“Tony, I, just, thank you,” Steve finally settled on. “This means a lot to me.” 

“Hey, I’ll leave you to take a look at everything, you know, check it all out.” Tony tried to inch away. He wanted to leave Steve with his things, thinking that he might prefer to go through it all without Tony breathing down his neck. 

But Steve surprised him when, he said he would actually prefer if they went through everything together. He said he wanted to share his memories of the items with Tony, and maybe even find out where he found each item. He also figured it would be nice, after all the effort Tony went through in order to get it all.

And that was how they spent the rest of the evening. Going through all the items Tony had obtained throughout the years, while Steve shared his memories of them from before the ice.

...

It was later that night, when they were ready to call it a day, that Steve finally asked the question that Tony was dreading all this while.

“So, why did you go through all the effort of tracking down all these things? I mean, I know you said that you were a fan but...” Steve trailed off, as if hoping Tony would fill in the rest. 

At the question, Tony felt himself flush. He didn’t know if Steve was trying to imply anything, but it was mortifying to think that Steve might have an inclination that it wasn’t just admiration that Tony had towards the man.

See the thing was, Tony didn’t just admire Captain America, he also admired the man, Steve Rogers as well. Okay, at first, he had, of course, been drawn in by the notion of an awe inspiring hero, but who hadn’t? It was pretty much guaranteed if you were an American that Captain america was your favourite hero. Heck, even if you weren’t, everyone loved him, even villains! 

But as Tony’s admiration of Captain America grew, so did his curiosity towards the man himself—not just his heroic alter ego. And Tony found that Steve Rogers was every bit as heroic as Captain America. He couldn’t believe all the details the history books left out. Sure, they got the gist of it—a sickly man who wanted to be of service to his country despite all his ailments—but he was so much more than that. 

Even before the serum, Steve was always doing his best for everyone. Despite his small stature he was always standing up to bullies, ready to fight for what he believed in. He didn’t have much to his name, but he still helped those less fortunate and always volunteered at his local soup kitchen every Wednesday without fail. Steve was very much a good man, and he made Tony want to do better, be better. 

Tony was also shy to admit that his admiration of Steve didn’t end there. Tony had always had a crush on Captain America, but somewhere along the way of Tony’s research into Steve Rogers’ life had led the way to honest to god feelings for the man himself. Tony would deny it to his dying breath, but he had completely fallen in love with Steve Rogers; the soldier was everything Tony could ever hope to be, to want. 

But Tony couldn’t say that all to Steve. He didn’t think he would ever know how.

The silence had grown with every second left unanswered, and Tony felt himself continue to grow warmer under Steve’s gaze.

When the silence started to reach an unbearable length, Tony knew he had to say something. Gathering up courage he tried to speak, “Steve, I—I...” His throat felt dry, and he couldn’t seem to get the words out, but Steve deserved an answer, so he wet his lips, looked Steve in the eyes, and tried again. “It started off as just something to do, you know, another thing to pick up that my father abandoned—it didn’t hurt that I was a huge fan either. But, the thing is...the more I collected, the more I learned and... the more...invested I became. With every item I added, the more I learned about you, and it was just...You—” Tony felt his voice crack. He was mortified when he realized he was crying. 

Steve brought him into his arms, and that caused the dam to burst. He was sobbing now. It was as if all his feelings were just now being allowed to come out after holding them in for so long. 

“You were so much more than anything I could have ever imagined. Steve,” He continued as he wiped the tears from his face. “You’ve been through so much your whole life but you never gave up living, and just being in this room helped me remember that.” At those words, Tony finally got the courage to say what was left. He looked up into Steve’s eyes and said, “This room helped me get through so many tough times in my life because at the centre of it all was you. I—I love you Steve.”

This was it, this was the moment that Tony knew he couldn’t go back. Steve would leave taking everything with him, and Tony would finally have to learn to cope without him. 

So he was quite shocked when Steve pulled him to his chest and wrapped his arms back around him.

“Wha—Steve?” Tony asked, he was at a total loss as to what was happening. 

“Tony, I—I’ve loved you for a while now, I can’t believe all this time you’ve felt the same way. This is just—” Steve didn’t get to finish because Tony was pulling back and cutting him off. 

“No way, Steve don’t lie to me, if you don’t feel the same way just tell me. You don’t need to pretend with me, I know that there is no possible way that you would like me ba—” This time Tony got cut off by Steve pulling him in for a kiss. 

It was a deep kiss. Steve had one hand entwined into Tony’s hair tilting his head, while the other was curved around his waist, holding him close. 

Tony himself was shocked at first, but when he felt Steve’s lips pressed up against his he couldn’t help but melt into it. The feel of Steve’s warm hand as it slid from his waist to the small of his back had Tony in a slight shiver and a small gasp at his mouth. Steve used the opening to further deepen the kiss with a brief touch from his tongue. When Tony gave a moan in response, Steve finally pulled back. 

The kiss itself didn’t last that long, but the passion Steve put into it did get the message through. Steve honestly seemed to like him too. Tony was pulled from his thoughts of the kiss when Steve spoke up. 

“Tony, I do love you, this isn’t me saying it to appease you. When I first woke up from the Ice, I was so lost. I had nothing and no one left from my past. Tony, you were the first person to give me a home. Not just some place to live in, but a place where I could be myself and was surrounded by people who cared about me. People who didn’t just treat me as Captain America, but Steve Rogers. People who went out of their way to make sure I knew how every little thing in the 21 century worked. People who spent so much time sending me adorable puppy videos and funny messages so they could make me laugh.” Tony let a small smile slip out at those words, he couldn’t help it, he was guilty of always sending Steve a ton of shit so that he could get a cute response. 

Steve picked up Tony’s hands and rubbed the back of them as he continued on.” And people who have a room filled with things of mine because they understand who I am, and being close to that comforts them. Tony, even if I didn’t love you before how could I possibly not love you now knowing how much you care and completely get me?” 

Tony didn’t know how to respond to that, other than you know completely bursting into tears, again. Seriously, it was beginning to annoy him just how emotional he was being today. 

Steve, however, wasn’t phased by the crying at all. He simply pulled him back into his arms and let Tony cry it out. Tony guessed that said something about how well Steve knew him. He knew that they still had a lot left to discuss, but he figured that they were headed in the right direction now, so he simply enjoyed being held by Steve.


End file.
